3 NPA 'tax collectors' surrender in Sultan Kudarat

COTABATO CITY — Three more members of the New People’s Army, part of a group collecting "revolutionary tax" from vulnerable farmers in Sultan Kudarat, pledged allegiance to the government last weekend.

The 6th ID did not immediately announce their surrender to give local officials in Sultan Kudarat’s adjoining Lebak and Kalamansig towns enough time to relocate the three of them, Sitong Aldew Kandason and his wife, Mahay Asil Kandason, and Samson Sayno Canaway, to areas far from reach of their former companions.

Major Gen. Antonio Nafarrete, commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division and acting Western Mindanao Command chief, told reporters on Tuesday that the three of them first turned in their assault rifles before they renounced their membership with the NPA at the headquarters of the 37th Infantry Battalion in Barangay Tibpuan in Lebak, Sultan Kudarat.

Nafarrete said the three rebels surrendered through the intercession of local executives in Lebak and Kalamansig, the commanding officer of the 37th IB, Lt. Col. Christopher Capuyan, and his immediate superior, Brig. Gen. Michael Santos of the 603rd Infantry Brigade. 

Local officials have confirmed that the Kandason couple and Canaway belonged to a ruthless NPA group that collected money at gunpoint, on a periodic basis, from villagers in hinterland areas in municipalities in the adjoining Sultan Kudarat and South Cotabato provinces.

Their surrender to the 37th IB has brought to 412 the number of NPA members who have surrendered, in batches, since early 2022, to units of the 6th ID in Central Mindanao.